News

Viz's Shonen Jump to Serialize Rurouni Kenshin: Hokkaido Arc Manga (Update)

This week's issue of Viz Media's digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine announced on Monday that the magazine will publish the new Rurouni Kenshin arc beginning next Monday. The new story, titled Rurouni Kenshin: Hokkaido Arc (Rurouni Kenshin, Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Hokkaidō-hen) in Japan, will debut in Shueisha's Jump SQ. on the same day.

Kenshin will be the protagonist of the new series and it will have five "arcs." The manga was originally announced in December as launching this spring, but was delayed to summer.

Watsuki and his wife Kaoru Kurosaki published a two-chapter prologue titled "Rurouni Kenshin Hokkaido-hen Jomaku: Ashitarō Zenka Ari" (Rurouni Kenshin Hokkaido Arc Prologue: The Criminal Ashitaro) for the manga in the Jump SQ. magazine last November and December. The manga featured a new protagonist named Ashitaro. Viz Media's digital Weekly Shonen Jump manga magazine published the prequel in English last December.

Kurosaki is also serving as story collaborator on the new manga.

Watsuki first launched his 28-volume Rurouni Kenshin manga in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1994. The manga has more than 60 million copies in print. The manga centers around Kenshin Himura, once a deadly assassin during the Meiji Restoration, who is trying to find a new life beyond violence. The manga has since been adapted into a 95-episode TV anime series, an anime film, three original video anime, three live-action films, and a stage musical by the all-female musical theater troupe Takarazuka Revue.

Update: Viz Media confirmed with ANN that it will publish the entirety of the new series in its English Shonen Jump. The company also confirmed that the new series will have an English subtitle but it has not yet been finalized.